With the chimes of New Years Eve and congo-ing in the
street a seemingly long distant memory, I cast my mind back to what has
happened this month, at first I thought we had just been amazingly busy and not
a lot had happened. But once I started writing some notes down I realise it has
been a quite an incredible month, with a lot of firsts thrown in.
Just after the New Year we did a “never before” and
closed for food for 5 days, everyone needed a well earned break, recharge the
batteries and enjoy a bit of well deserved family or own time.
Paul and I took the opportunity to return to Barcelona
for a few days break and further investigate some of the sights we saw back in
the summer with the boys, there is so much more to see, we have only tipped the
top of the iceberg, so with sight seeing, eating and drinking on our to do
list, I think we did very well, with a café, restaurant or bar every few steps
and amazing architecture all over, we were in heaven, we tried some of the most
stunning food and well to put it politely the most strange! Some of the ideas
have now been adapted to suit our menu.
The return to work was a little bit strange for us
all, we were all a little lost, but soon got back into the swing of things as
the stream of customers gave us no chance to think about it, but just get on,
always best to be chucked in at the deep end. So a lazy January we have not
had, relentless is a better word.
Whilst we still had a moment of reprieve, as we
thought, we did another first, although we had always talked about it… THE
STAFF NIGHT OUT with a journey out of the county, but not to far, we spent an
evening at Woods in Dulverton, well the food and service was second to none, we
were well and truly looked after, not so sure about the impromptu speeches, secret
Santa’s and charades though? Family Swan had a great night, with a few sore
heads the next day and whole repertoire to talk about for the coming weeks.
Last week we had an inspection from one of the Visit
England Awards inspectors, strangely enough we had only been talking about a
possible visit that lunchtime, and with a possible entry of 3 to 4 from each
county I wondered how many we might possibly be up against, do you know how
many counties there are in England? No neither apparently did we, but thanks to
Google we find out 48!! So whilst speaking to the inspector over breakfast and
assuming that he had been eating out for months, I asked how many places that
he had to visit, the answer was 5, well now we feel doubly honoured,
final judging takes place next week, with the awards being hosted in the north
west in early March, fingers crossed XX
The 28th of this month sees us at The
Castle in Taunton, for the launch of The Exmoor Food Festival,
Olivier-Clavelshay Barn (former Woods) Starters.. Mark – Masons Arms – fish
course… Liam Finnegan – The Castle Taunton- main course …The Swan – dessert,
with the students from The Combe, West Somerset College looking after the
canapés and extras. This leads on to numerous venues in and around Exmoor
offering 2 courses for £10 and 3 for £15 on selected dates through out
February, so I suggest you Google Exmoor Food Festival 2016 and eat and drink
your way around Exmoor for a bargain.
